Chapter 2

Dear Skylar,

You really didn't have to do that, but thank your family for me.

My parents say it's fine for me to come and stay with you for the rest of the holidays and were wondering when you'd like me to arrive?

Do you know if Ron and Harry are going?

Sincerely,

Hermione.

Skylar grinned as she moved to her mother's office to relay the information she had in her hand. Hermione Granger was the smartest student in their year at Hogwarts and great friends with Ron, Harry and Skylar. Now that she had a ticket to the World Cup for her, Skylar had invited the girl to come and stay at the Rosenwald estate for the rest of the holidays.

"Mum, I got a response from Hermione." She said as she entered the room.

Dominique's office, though usually organised, was covered in paper.

"Woah…" Skylar mumbled.

"It's like that isn't it." Skylar found her mother looking over the shelf beside the door for a book. "You're father has so much on his plate, you know with the World Cup and the tournament happening, that I've been taking half his work load."

"That's a lot of paper mum."

"Well, it all needs doing." Dominique nodded. "So, what's Hermione saying?"

"She's wondering when she should come. And thank you for the tickets."

"Well, I'm sure your father can go and pick her up. She should get here before the World Cup, how about a few days beforehand?" Dominique offered.

"How will you go pick her up? The car?"

"I think it's a bit far for that." Dominique chuckled.

Wizards barely ever mixed or messed with muggle contraptions, unless you were Mr. Weasley who loved muggles. But the Rosenwalds had to find some way to transport three children, three trunks, two owls and a cat to Kings Cross every year and the easiest solution was a car. Nathaniel Rosenwald had gone out and purchased a Rolls Royce in Skylar's first year of Hogwarts.

"We might have to along-side apparate her, though that might be a bit risky…" Dominique said thinking. "Write back to her but tell her I'll sit on how to have her collected."

"Alright."

Skylar headed back through the house and upstairs to her bedroom, where she contracted a letter back to her friend.

Dear Hermione,

Mum says you're welcome. She also said we'll collect you a few days before the cup if that's alright. She's not sure the best way to have you travel but said she'll think about it and we'll get back to you. I'll also inform you if Ron and his family get tickets, I can't invite Harry until they do because Ron wants him at his house.

Have a great summer and talk to you soon!

Skylar.

Skylar moved down to where the perches for the family's owls sat outside. There were four in total, Mitchum; Nick's owl, Reylon; Leon's owl, Trip; her father's owl and Cicil; her mother's owl. Skylar had been the only one to opt for getting a cat instead of an owl in her family.

As Leon and Nick were both at the Weasley's house, Skylar had a choice of which owl she wanted to use. She knew better than to use her parents' owls given how busy they were lately.

Skylar attached the letter to Reylon's leg and he hooted lightly before taking off to deliver to Hermione. The girl had hardly gone two steps before there was another hoot and she turned to another owl flying down towards her. This was not one of her family's owls, nor was it Harry's snowy owl Hedwig, or Ron's minute owl Pig, it even wasn't the Weasley's owl Errol. This was a barn owl and it went by the name Frig.

It belonged to Stephen Cornfoot, a Ravenclaw in her year. He'd taken a fancy to Skylar and she'd told him he could write to her over the summer.

"Hello Frig." Skylar untied the letter from his leg before the owl rested on the owl perches.

Dear Sky,

I hope your summer is going well, mine's been rather placid.

Are you excited for the Quidditch World Cup? We managed to score tickets, and we will arrive a few days before the game starts. Are you going?

Looking forward to your reply,

Stephen.

She wasn't surprised Stephen was going, she'd be more surprised if most of her classmates didn't turn up. Britain had not hosted the World Cup in thirty years, it was a big event.

Skylar hurried to write her reply and inform she was going, but wouldn't be there till the Monday of the match. Her father had scored such good tickets that they were allowed to leave so late. With the event being so big, and wizards being a secret from Muggles, they had to stagger the arrivals for the game, those with better tickets arrived closer to the game night.

Skylar sent the letter back with Frig and said she'd see Stephen at the game, after all, if they sent too many letters while he was at the field for the cup, the muggles would get suspicious. There were a lot of rules for those who were arriving.

As the Quidditch Cup crept closer, Ron began to get antsy, his father hadn't gotten tickets yet and he hated the idea of being the only one who couldn't go.

"Why didn't your dad get tickets for all of us? I thought he liked doing that?" Ron asked.

"Your parents told him not to, said your dad had it covered." Skylar shrugged.

The two were at the Rosenwald estate and were lying on the grass outside in the sunshine, both ignoring any homework they had left.

"By the way, where are your parents?"

"Busy. They have a lot of work to do at the moment."

"Like what?"

"Well, being the Head of the Aurors my dad's in charge of security for the World Cup and mum's been helping him plan for—" she broke off.

Ron sat up. "For what?"

"Oh there's some other thing happening that the Ministry's also been busy with." She shrugged, blowing off the importance of the tournament. Not only had she and her brothers been told to keep it a secret, Skylar wanted to keep it a secret. She wanted it to be a surprise. After all, she never got surprises, so she had to get such excitement from others.

"What is it?"

"Some game thing."

"Skylar, we both know you know more details than that." Ron snapped and he nudged her shoulder. "Out with it."

"It's a surprise, don't ruin it."

"So it is something important?"

"I'm not answering that." She responded.

"Bloody hell Sky, come on."

"Nope."

"Ron!" The two turned to the door to find Ginny and Leon hurrying towards them.

"What's up?" Skylar asked.

"Mr. Weasley got back from work." Leon grinned.

"Ron, he got tickets!" Ginny said.

"Yes!" Skylar cheered before jumping to her feet. "Now we're all going! Quick! We have to tell Harry!"

"Mum and dad are discussing what to do about Harry now." Ginny nodded.

"What do you mean?" Ron asked as he too stood up.

"They're not sure what to do about Harry's family."

"Can't we just go in and take Harry, what can the muggles do?" Skylar offered. The three all chuckled at her.

Ginny and Ron went back to their house to find out what was going to happen with Harry, while Skylar and Leon stayed home. It would be dinner time soon, and as soon as they left they'd likely have to come back again. They also didn't want to be a bother while the Weasleys were busy.

It turned out Nick thought similarly for it wasn't long before he returned also.

"They're discussing different strategies for collecting Harry. They had a bit of a spit when Mr. Weasley made a mention of if they still had the Ford Anglia it would be easier." He grinned.

Mr. Weasley had once bought a muggle car, a turquoise Ford Anglia, which he had then pulled apart and enchanted so that it would fly. The car itself was now running around the Forbidden Forest on the grounds of Hogwarts after Ron and Harry had flown the car to the school at the beginning of their second year, the barrier had been sealed by a house elf and forced the two to miss the train. They'd thought flying the car would be a brilliant idea.

"It would probably be best if dad and Mr. Weasley took our car, to be as normal as possible. We all know what Harry's family is like." Skylar thought.

"Yeah, bullies." Nick nodded.

"Maybe it's for that reason we shouldn't be nice." Leon offered.

"Whatever the case, isn't this exciting! We all get to go together! This is going to be epic!" Skylar grinned.

"And we're all up in the minister's box as well, Mr. Weasley was in good favour with Ludo Bagman so he got good seats too." Nick grinned.

"Perfect!" Skylar grinned. "I have to send Hermione a letter to let her know! She's arriving soon too. Mum organised for her to use the floo network, connected Hermione's parents' fireplace up."

"Is that allowed?" Leon asked, surprised.

"Not normally but who can say no to a Rosenwald? Even if she's not a mind manipulator." The three children all laughed before their mother's voice sounded and they were called for dinner.

With the Weasleys in possession of eight tickets (Mrs. Weasley was staying home), the two oldest Weasleys were invited to come back home. Bill was the oldest and lived in Egypt, working for Gringotts as a curse breaker. The Rosenwalds had yet to meet Bill even in the last five years of knowing the Weasleys. Charlie was the second oldest and he the Rosenwalds had met, as he'd been in his final years of Hogwarts when the twins and Nick had become fast friends. Charlie had always had a passion for dragons and so was usually off in Romana studying them.

When they heard of the two older brothers coming home, the Rosenwald children had insisted on meeting them. Or at least at meeting Bill.

"He's not that special." Ron grumbled.

"Ron, I know every one of your siblings, but Bill. It's weird and needs to be rectified." Skylar demanded, much to the amusement of Ginny and the twins. "I mean, what's he like? Is he anything like any of you? He was Head Boy right? He's not uptight like Percy is he?"

"Bill's cool. Very laid back." Ginny said thinking.

"Now we definitely have to meet him." Nick nodded.

And so, when the Rosenwalds were told of the older Weasley sibling's arrival, they made plans to head over the day after, as to not startle them.

Arriving in the kitchen in the morning, Skylar was first to spot one of these brothers. She instantly knew it had to be Bill, for she'd never met him before. She moved out of the way for her brothers coming in behind her as Bill turned to her.

He grinned.

"You must be Skylar Rosenwald, I've heard a lot about you." He greeted her. He extended his hand and Skylar shook it with a smile.

"And a pleasure to finally meet you Bill, I've heard about you too. I'm still surprised by what stands before me though." She confessed.

Bill was cool. He was tall, with long hair that he had tied back in a ponytail. He was wearing an earring with what looked like a fang dangling from it.

"Really?" Bill chuckled.

"Yeah, I mean they never told me you wore dragon hide boots." And she pointed down at them. She knew he'd been expecting her to say something else and this statement made him laugh.

She smiled before Nick appeared in the fire and stepped out behind her.

"Woah." He said surprised. "Bill yeah?"

Bill greeted Nick, and when he appeared, he greeted Leon as well, who stared up at Bill in surprise.

What could they say? He was nothing like they'd pictured.

"Well, I didn't know we were expecting visitors." The four all turned to see someone they did recognise, though he looked different to when they'd last seen him.

"Oh my god! Charlie!?" Skylar asked, grinning.

The last they'd seen him, Charlie had been leaving, heading off to Hogwarts for his last year, dressing in robes and as pale as his red-haired siblings. Now however, he was so freckly he looked tanned, his arms were very muscular and one of them had a large, shiny burn on it. He was built like the twins, short and stocky.

"Well, well, Skylar Rosenwald. Last I saw you, you were…"

"Ten." She responded shortly, earning a laugh.

"And here you are even more gorgeous." He said. She shrugged smugly. "Nick, good to see you again, keeping out of trouble from Fred and George?"

"As if that's possible." Nick responded.

"Good to see you Leon, excited for the game?"

"Aren't you? You know you're still counted as a legend at Hogwarts right?" Leon grinned. Charlie laughed.

"Should be a good game. Pity neither England or Scotland got in though."

"Let's not talk about that." Leon sighed. "Such dismal results."

England had lost the chance to get into the World Cup when they'd lost to Transylvania, a score of three-hundred and ninety, to ten. Scotland however, was slaughtered by Luxembourg and even Wales lost to Uganda.

"Leon was devastated for days." Skylar shook her head.

"Still is." Nick added before he moved from the kitchen to go and find the twins. He greeted Ron who appeared. He noticed Skylar and Leon, turning from Nick to them, surprised.

"You guys are early."

"We can't all laze around like you do." Skylar shrugged, earning a chuckle from Charlie and Bill, the younger of the two making himself some breakfast.

Ron shot Skylar a look as she glanced around, noticing something was largely wrong with the kitchen.

"Where's Mrs. Weasley?" The woman spent a lot of the time cooking, especially in the mornings for breakfast.

As she questioned this however the woman walked in from outside, a basket under her arm with chicken eggs in it.

"Well, good morning you three, suppose you've heard the verdict."

"Verdict?" Leon and Skylar asked.

"They decided how we were going to get Harry, they sent him a letter. Through the muggle post."

"I do hope it finds its way." Mrs. Weasley worried.

Skylar and Leon both chuckled, muggle post was not something full-wizard families such as the Weasleys and Rosenwalds knew anything about.

"So?" Skylar asked

"Dad's making arrangements to use the floo network like your dad did for Hermione." Ron grinned.

Skylar gapped. "No! You're going to use the floo network into that house?" She could just imagine Harry's family's reactions at this. Harry's family thought anything magical was absurd and abnormal and complete nonsense.

Ron nodded. "I've sent Harry a letter too, but I don't know which letter will arrive first." He confessed.

"When is he coming?"

"We're going to pick him up Sunday night, before the game."

"Perfect, Hermione's arriving Saturday." Skylar grinned. "I'm assuming we're all heading to the Cup on Monday?"

"Yeah." Ron nodded.

"Even better." Skylar grinned.

"I think Arthur and Nathaniel have made arrangements for neighbouring campsites as well." Mrs. Weasley smiled.

"This just keeps getting better." Skylar grinned.